Daily GK Update - 14th June 2015

i. The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the final guidelines for the 6-year and
13-year cash settled Interest Rate Futures (IRF) on government securities with
residual maturity of 4-8 years and 11-15 years respectively under the Interest
Rate Futures (Reserve Bank) (Amendment) Directions, 2015. For this purpose, RBI
amended the Interest Rate Futures (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2013 dated 5
December 2013.

ii.
For the 6-year cash settled IRF contracts, the underlying shall be a coupon
bearing government security of face value of 100 rupees and the residual
maturity of 6-year IRF is between 4 and 8 years on the expiry of futures
contract.

iii.
For the 13-year cash settled IRF contracts, the underlying can be a coupon
bearing government security of face value of 100 rupees and residual maturity
will be between 11 and 15 years on the expiry of futures contract.

iv.
Moreover, the RBI also expanded the
residual maturity for the existing 10-year cash settled IRF from 9-11 years to
8-11 years to provide market participants a greater choice and flexibility to
hedge their interest rate risk across different tenors.

💥US becomes world's largest oil producer,
says BP Report

i. As
per recently released report by British Petroleum (BP) Energy Company, United
States (US) became the world’s largest oil producer in 2014 surpassing Saudi
Arabia.

ii.
Production: US had produced 11.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) i.e.
15.9% more oil in 2014. While, Saudi Arabia was placed second position as it
had produced 11.5 million bpd in 2014.
Russia was placed at third position with 10.8 million bpd oil
production.

iii.
Natural Gas Production: US also has surpassed Russia as the world’s largest
producer of natural gas.

iv.
Consumption: China had remained the world’s largest growth market for energy in
2014

v.
Facts related to India: India’s oil production gad declined by 1.3% at 895,000
bpd, while the consumption had increased by 3% to 3.8 million bpd. India has
shown 7.1% rise in energy consumption.

i.
Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has sacked Dr
Bimal K Roy as the Director of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). He was
removed from the office on charges of indiscipline one-and-a-half months before
the end of his term.

ii.
Professor Sanghmitra Bandyopadhayay now will replace Dr Bimal K Roy as the
Director of ISI. With this appointment she has become the first woman to lead
the institute.

iii.
Roy who is a renowned cryptologist was appointed Director of ISI in August
2010. In April 2015, he was conferred with India’s fourth highest civilian
honour Padma Shri for his contribution in the discipline of literature and
education.